Dewhurst, still smarting from his defeat by Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s GOP U.S. Senate runoff, hinted he may have another political race in his future — though he turns 67 later this month.

“If I had a chance to do it over again, I would do it differently,” he said. ”And if I run another race, I’ll do it differently.”

Dewhurst appeared at the Texas Capitol to help preside over a meeting of the Legislative Budget Board, which he co-chairs. During the meeting, he peppered state fiscal experts with about a half dozen questions.

Asked afterward about his plans for 2014 — when he could seek re-election or perhaps even run for governor — Dewhurst ducked.

“I’m focused exclusively on this next session,” he said. He added, though, “I love working for the people of the state of Texas.”

While Dewhurst vowed to help Cruz this fall — and, like Cruz, try to help more conservatives across the country win U.S. Senate seats — he declined to say whether he was shocked by Cruz’s 14-point win or analyze what went wrong.

During the board’s meeting, Dewhurst repeatedly said voters are so mad at the federal government that they disbelieve that state taxes have been cut and state spending, restrained. He elicited answers from the acting head of the board and from a top official in the comptroller’s office.

Their answers: Yes, the 2006 tax swap was a net tax reduction. Yes, the state permanently shouldered the burden of that year’s school property tax cuts. Yes, Texas ranks very low among the states, near bottom, in state spending per capita.

“We, and in particular myself, have done a poor job in explaining to the people of Texas that we actually have cut taxes [and] cut spending,” Dewhurst told reporters, “A lot of people are so mad at Washington that they don’t believe any part of government — … state … county … or city … — can actually tighten the belt, can actually cut taxes, which we’ve done repeatedly.”

Updated, 12:45 p.m. – Dewhurst and Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said next session will be challenging because it will take about $9 billion to write the next two-year budget. Going forward, lawmakers need to plug a $4.7 billion hole in Medicaid, pay the usual $2 billion it takes to cover enrollment increases in public schools and provide state aid to schools for all 24 months of the upcoming two-year budget cycle. Last year, lawmakers helped close a $27 billion two-year budget shortfall by delaying the August 2013 payment to schools — about $2 billion — into the next cycle. That means in the next budget they write, they probably will try to cover 25 months’ worth of payments to school districts.

And that’s on top of this: They’ll need to pass a $5 billion emergency spending bill to pay the $4.7 billion Medicaid IOU they left last session and some unexpected costs, such as unpaid bills from fighting last year’s wildfires and an uptick in costs of treating prison inmates.

So they’ll have to come with about $14 billion or find ways to cut. According to testimony at the meeting, budget writers next session can expect to have $8.1 billion available in the rainy day fund, and because tax revenues are running well ahead of expectations, there could be a general fund surplus of as much as $5 billion.

“So serious challenges,” said Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas.

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The blog for the Dallas Morning News politics team tracks Dallas Fort Worth area, Texas and national campaigns.